An unexpected event such as an unanticipated reboot command may force a system shutdown that the user may be unaware of (e.g. reboot while user away from computer), resulting in a high probability that the work in progress will be lost. Currently available prior art tools do not solve the problem of saving the application state immediately before the reboot is invoked. Even if the user is enabled to continue to use the same application, the work might be lost if not manually saved before reboot.
Some Operating Systems (e.g. Windows of Microsoft) provide the hibernate function which takes a snapshot of the system. The hibernate function freezes the system until it is restarted and does not allow changing registry keys. If the invoked shutdown is unexpected, however, the hibernate function is of little help. Furthermore, the freezing of the system would be incompatible with the necessity of changing registry keys when, for example, a forced reboot is invoked by the installation of a patch.
Another solution is the Advanced App Saver 1.0 of Asynchrony Solutions (available for some Windows version e.g. Windows 95, 98, ME or 2000) that saves currently running applications when a shutdown occurs. If a user leaves a Windows Explorer window opened when a shut down occurs on a Windows computer, the next time the operating system is started, that window will reappear. Unfortunately, the same is not true for any other windows that were open at the time the computer was shut down. The main purpose of App Saver is to extend the same functionality to other applications. It does this by configuring Windows to run the applications which were open the last time Windows was shut down when it next starts up. When Windows is restarted, all applications, which were running before the last shutdown, are restarted. However, this application is only about restarting and does not save the application state before the shutdown is invoked. Consequently, the user can continue to use the same application but might lose work if not manually saved before reboot.